Moringa hildebrandtii, or Hildebrandt's moringa, is a tree species with a massive, water-storing trunk in the family Moringaceae. It is endemic to Madagascar, where it is extinct in the wild, but preserved by indigenous horticulture practices.[1]
The plant originally was thought to grow along the west coast of Madagascar, but ethnobotany data suggest it in fact grew in the island's extreme southwest.
The plant's water-storing trunk grows up to 20 m. Its leaves are pinnate, compound, and can reach 1 m long. The leaf rachis and stem tips of young plants are distinctively deep red. Leaves spread around the trunk in an umbrella-like fashion. The small ivory-white flowers are borne in large sprays. Fruits are up to 50 cm long and contain 6 to 12 large nut-shaped seeds in a hard, light brown shell.
In an article in Cactus World (the quarterly journal of the British Cactus and Succulent Society) the authors claimed to have rediscovered a population of M. hildebrandtii in the wild.[2]